It Felt like a Punch to the Chest (And It Crushed My Heart)
by JoyoftheStorm
Summary: It had been another battle... Always another battle... (Or, a fic inspired by me and my wonderful friend's chaotic chatroom, bouts of anxiety, and the song "Safe and Sound" that I can never get out of my head...)


**Ello everyone!**

 **...Please don't murder me?**

 **I know it has been a _very_ long while since I've updated anything. I promise I'm working on them! Just this thing called "Life" apparently disproves of my activities and does it's best to keep me from writing to all of my wonderful readers and reviewers. **

**But no more!**

 **You guys should be seeing many more updates to come this month, fate be willing, so I hope you all look forwards to that as much as I do! ;3**

 **Now lemme get out of y'alls way so you can get what you came here for. ;D**

 **I hope you all enjoy, and I'll see you all at the end!**

 **DISCLAIMER: No Sonic characters belong to me... _yet._**

 ** _Inspired by Talor Swift: "Safe and Sound" and me and my wonderful friend's chaotic chatroom._**

* * *

Fuzzy.

That was the only word my mind could grasp to describe what I was feeling, what I was seeing. What I could remember.

How had I gotten here?

Where _is_ here?

The world faded black at the edges of my vision.

Cold.

That was new.

I felt cold.

The pain had long since gone, another distant fuzzy memory. There was no pain.

Suddenly, I felt strong familiar arms wrap around me, shaking and _oh so gentle_. As if afraid I would shatter at the slightest touch.

Silly kitty.

I try to focus on your blurry face. Oh, there you are!

Why do you look so sad, so afraid sis?

My arms are numb and heavy as mountains, but I would move worlds if I had too just to comfort you. I mourn the fact that my strength seems to have left me, reducing me to weakly brushing your scarred cheek with cold feeble fingers and giving a tired, metallic tasting smile.

I see your beautiful, brillant emerald eyes grow wet as you try not to cry, holding my now limp hand flush against your warm cheek.

Why? I know how you hate to cry, to be touched while crying even more so. Yet you hold me close, as if afraid I would leave you...

"'S... okay, Hawkie... Never... never let... you go..." The words came out muffled and so very quiet, but it was clearest, loudest thing in the little bubble our world had become.

Don't you know that you're my sister, my best friend, forever and ever? That you'll never be rid of me till far beyond the end of time?

Yet your unshed tears are now streaming down your face as you try to muffle a sob, forcing a watery smile as you tenderly nuzzle my head. I vaugely feel my fur becoming damp with your almost silent tears.

But I can barely make you out anymore, the darkness creeping along the edges of my fading vision seeming to suck away my remaining strength. I struggle to even weakly return the nuzzle.

I'm growing so, so tired. My eyes slowly began to close. Just... for a second...

I'm dimly aware of you shaking me, pleading, _begging_ me to keep my eyes open in increasing desperation. Of you finally just gripping me as tightly as you can without crushing every bone in my body. "Please," I hear you whisper into my limp ear, thick with tears and heartbreak, " _please_ , Dark... Please don't go... _please don't leave me alone..._ "

I want to open my eyes, reassure you that I'll always be with you no matter what...

But the desicion seems to have been slipped from my hands without my notice, and I fall ever further into the comforting darkness pulling me under.

The last thing I hear is your tears that hurt me even now, and you softly humming your mother's lullabye.

G'night Hawkie... Love... you...

oOoOo

It had been another battle.

Always another battle.

I'd thought, I'd hoped, I'd _begged_ , but I'm always dragged back. Always ripped away, back into the harsh unforgiving grasp of war, of pain, of this drowning grief of something lost.

A broken, soul shattering wail echoed across the war-ravaged field that had been long stained red and become slick with oil, the setting sun making the world seem as if dipped into a red haze, bringing the fighting to a pause as it cut deep into all who heard it.

I was dimly aware the wretched sound spilled from my own lips, but I was beyond caring. My sole reason for caring about anything laid cold in my arms, a small smile etched delicately onto his ashen bloodied face.

My wail dissolved into heart-wrenching sobs as I cradled my brothers broken body, gently rocking him from side as if he were simply sleeping. _Just sleeping._

Rationally, I knew the truth. He was gone. Gone like all the others who'd ever genuinely loved me...

But it still wasn't able to stop the flood of raw whispered words into his cold, limp ear, as with a shaking hand I finished slowly closing his eyes... even though I knew he would never hear them.

"It... It's alright bro. Y-you... you go ahead and... and rest. You're safe. Y-you're safe now. No one's e-ever gonna... gonna be able to hurt you again. I promise... I promise..."

No answer. I didn't expect one.

I bit back another choking sob.

"A-and I'll... I'll be right there with you, soon. Okay? J-just... just wait for me. I'm coming, Dark. I'm coming..."

The fight had resumed in earnest, deaf to my half mad vow. Where I sat crouched, holding my fallen brother, seemed to be the eye of the storm raging on around us. The single place of calm.

 _Not for long._

I slowly set him down, stroking his soft, cold ears. I could feel the grief and shock threatening to drown me boil dangerously, hot and enraged.

The now slowly rising moon dipped the world into pale light, but all I could see was _red_. Blood red. The blood of my brother. The blood my tears had ran. The blood I would spill as I set the small field my world had ended in on fire.

The last shred of my rationality hoped that Dark didn't watch me become the monster that I had always feared becoming, before it slipped away into oblivion.

With a ragged roar filled with vengeance, I reached to the depths of myself and ripped forwards every once of power I possessed. So much so that it felt like I tore myself into pieces, but I was numb to the pain, to everything...

All I wanted was to watch the ones who took my brother away from me suffer the same fate. I wanted them to feel the pain I was feeling, I wanted them to die as I crushed them with my own two hands.

Everything became a blur. Of thoughts, of actions, of people, of reason.

 _There was nothing else for me to lose._

I came to in a ravaged, scorched field, the soft morning light showing the carnage that had been wrought. I limply laid cold in a puddle where I must have collapsed. The only way for me to even recognize the once green plain, was the prone form of my brother's body. He laid untouched by the harsh fires still burning, by the deep gapping trenches that appeared to have brought an end to the ones caught in them.

I went to push myself up, before a searing blade of agony screamed bloody-murder at me from my belly, causing me to cry out and stop trying to get up immediately. Panting, pained, I slowly looked down... to find a sword lodged through my abdomen.

That explained the puddle.

I numbly gazed at it, before coming to a desicion. Locking my jaw, I ripped it out with a muffled scream before I could change my mind.

I laid there in my now slowly growing puddle, having let the sword land wherever it had once it left my hand.

The world was dimming.

So close... It wouldn't be long now. Wouldn't be long... until I could be reunited with my brother...

But there was one, last, thing I had to do first.

Gritting my teeth, I weakly dragged myself closer to his body. It was long and tortuous and slow... but I finally made it. Weakly curling into his icy side in relief, I finally let my eyes rest.

I'm coming, Dark... I'm coming...

oOoOo

The search and rescue squads later found them in the middle of the wartorn field, bloody and broken, with small matching smiles on their faces.

Together again into the next life, where no pain could follow.

* * *

 **...I can explain... o-o**

 ***glares intensify***

 ***sweats* Icannotexplain.**

 ***runs away screaming as readers chase me with a variety of shiny, sharp objects***

 **Lemme know how many of you I need to revive (or run away from lol) in the comments, and I'll see you all next time! ;D**

 **~Hawk**


End file.
